


Five Years Later

by Reyka_Sivao



Category: Hellspark - Janet Kagan
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyka_Sivao/pseuds/Reyka_Sivao
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years later, at the Lassti Cultural Exchange and Trade Center...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Years Later

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greerwatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/gifts).



> To greerwatson: Thanks so much for requesting this wonderful fandom!

Five years later, at the Lassti Cultural Exchange and Trade Center

There was a spaceport now, of sorts.  Well, a landing pad, anyway, which was a far cry from the field it had been when they had landed here the first time, and Tocohl eyed it appreciatively as she stepped down the gangplank. 

“Coming, Maggy?” she said out loud.

“Of course,” said Maggy, and hopped her new, smaller model of arachne up onto Tocohl’s shoulder.  “Like I’d trust you on your own down here.”

Tocohl grinned.  “I never go anywhere without you,” she complained, or perhaps simply observed.

“Good,” said Maggy decisively, but any further banter was put on hold by the approach of a daisy-clipper, a familiar figure, and an even more familiar voice.

“Hellspark!  Kid!” came Buntec’s voice, accompanied by a two-armed wave.  “It’s been too long!”

“Hey, Buntec!” said Maggy from the arachne, which was of course the point of sending it.  “How’s it going?”

“It’s been good!” said Buntec, ushering them into the daisy-clipper as she spoke.  “Lots of changes and lots less mud.  Just wait until you see what we’ve done with the place!”

“Who all is still around?” said Tocohl.

“Let’s see,” said Buntec, starting to count off on her fingers with one hand while steering with the other.  “Beside me, Edge-of-Dark, _layli-layli_ …Kejesli’s off captaining some new project…Alfvaen and swift-Kalat both stuck around…”  Having run out of fingers, she grabbed the wheel with the other hand and started on the other.  “I think Om Im is off aide-ing for some judge right now.  John the Smith is sticking around for a while, but he’s getting ready to leave on the next transport.  Ruurd left for ‘some field that’s not beyond me’.”  
  
“What about the Sprookjes?” said Maggy.

“Still very much involved,” said Buntec cheerfully.  “Though I still find it blasted hard to tell them apart.  Though most of them still can’t tell the difference between spoken languages at _all_ , so I don’t feel so bad about it.  But yeah, they’re still around—it wouldn’t be much of a cultural exchange center if they weren’t!”

The daisy-clipper flicked to a halt under Buntec’s capable hands, and she used both to gesture to the space in front of them.  “Welcome to the compound, version 2.0,” she said.

True to her word, there was indeed a lot less mud.  In fact, from where Tocohl stood observing, she couldn’t see _any_ mud at all.

“It’s quite a change,” she said.

Buntec grinned.  “Bet your ass it’s changed.  That’s the sprookjes’ doing—they whipped us up a nice little groundcover that won’t zap up and will keep the ground in its place.”

“It’s so colorful!” said Maggy.

“Yup,” said Buntec.  “I think the Sprookjes think we’re hopelessly unartistic.  But at least Edge-of-Dark and a few others are doing their best to prove otherwise.  –Speak of the devil.  Hey!  Edge-of-Dark!”

Edge-of-Dark waved and made her way toward the daisy-clipper—wearing, as Tocohl noted, a set of ankle-height boots that would be considered _very_ risqué on Jenniset--over mounds of blue and purple mosslike substance—and that was only what was right near them.  A whole rainbow stretched away from them towards the center of the compound. 

“It is such an honor to see you again,” she said, smiling at them right down to her hands.

Tocohl grinned and hopped out of the daisy-clipper, nearly dislodging the arachne from her shoulder.  “And I you, good lady,” she said in Vrynwyn, taking Edge-of-Dark’s hand in hers and kissing the air above it dramatically.

Buntec grinned too.  “I recognized that one,” she said.  “But come on!  The others will be waiting.”  Without waiting on them, she turned and loped across the compound, shouting greetings as she went.

Edge-of-Dark smiled indulgently.  “She certainly hadn’t calmed down,” she said.

“I would be worried if she had,” said Tocohl.

“Why?” said Maggy.

“Because it would be out of character,” said Tocohl.  “I would be worried that she was sick or something.”

“I think we can rest assured that she is _not_ ,” said Edge-of-Dark, as they followed Buntec more sedately across the now-colorful compound.

“Haul _ass!_ ” came Buntec’s voice floating back at them.

“You’re here to see your mother and the others, I take it?” said Edge-of-Dark.

“I thought I’d see what they’d managed to get done in my absence, yes,” said Tocohl with a smile.  “Who all is still here?

“Oh, you don’t know?” said Edge-of-Dark in surprise.  “Bayd and Darragh are still here, and so is Geremy and his ship.”

Tocohl raised her eyebrows.  “I’m honestly kind of surprised.”

“It’s a good thing they did stay,” said Edge-of-Dark, and Tocohl was about to ask why, but then Buntec reappeared with a whole crowd of well-wishers.

Tocohl hugged Bayd, clapped Geremy on the back, shook hands with Darragh, and made several other greetings of various levels of formality, and then managed to turn to the person she most wanted answers from.

She turned toward Geremy, put her hands on her hips, and then whatever she had meant to say dissolved completely.

“You’re wearing feathers,” she said instead.

“I am, aren’t I?” said Geremy with his characteristic glum overtones, but under that he sounded pleased. 

“Of course he is,” said Bayd.  “How would we talk to the Sprookjes otherwise?”

Maggy let out a whoop from the arachne that Tocohl was pretty sure she’d picked up from Buntec.  “Garbo is helping you!”

“Got it in one,” said Bayd cheerfully.  “She hasn’t gotten to Maggy’s level yet—I don’t think she’s ‘woken up’, if you want to put it that way—but she can at least act as a kind of translator, and match the feather ripples to the stance adjustments, if she knows what we’re trying to say.”

“I have to know what Tocohl is trying to say too,” said Maggy.

Bayd splayed her hand at her throat.  “True, true,” she said.  “But you two can do it much more smoothly.  Even with Garbo’s help, we still have quite an ‘accent’.  In fact, I think we’ve driven several Sprookjes to hysterics with our attempts.  Maybe you can give her some tips while you’re here.”

“I think I will,” said Maggy thoughtfully, and then the arachne fell into when seemed to be a contemplative silence, even though logically Tocohl knew that Maggy was perfectly capable of carrying on more than one conversation simultaneously. 

“So,” said Tocohl, “how’s the field work been going?”

“Pretty well, actually,” said Bayd.  “We’ve finally gotten down time markers and conditionals, and it turns out that they have some pretty fascinating biological classification systems.”

“Not that we would have expected anything less,” said another voice, and Tocohl looked up to see swift-Kalat where he was being dragged through the crowd by Alfvaen, “given their demonstrated level of biological control.”

 “It’s good to see you again!” said Alfvaen in Jenji, letting go of swift-Kalat’s hand long enough to snap her arms down in affirmation, causing a single silver bracelet to spin around her wrist. 

Tocohl grinned and returned the greeting before switching back to GalLing’ again out of courtesy to the others. 

“I hope you realize you’re going to have to tell me _everything_ ,” said Tocohl to no one and everyone in particular. 

“Of course,” said Alfvaen.

“I’m sure the Sprookjes will be more than happy to see you again as well,” said _layli-layli calulan,_ moving to join the small circle.  “They should be here soon.”

“And maybe you can come on a storm watch with us while you’re here!” said Alfvaen.

Tocohl’s lips twitched.  “I don’t know, the first one might have been enough for me.”

“We’ve got it down to a science now, though,” said Alfvaen.

“Mostly after the last transport added earplugs,” added swift-Kalat, in what might have been deadpan humor in another, but for him was simply adding relevant information to the discussion.

“I’ll think about it,” said Tocohl with a glimmer of amusement.  “But we should gather crops with the sun shines, as the Jannisetti say.  I’d love a tour of your new and improved compound.”

They were of course more than happy to show her around and describe all the changes that had been made, though the explaining was mostly a tug-of-war between Buntec’s boisterousness and Alfvaen’s slightly lower-key but no less insistent cheerfulness, with the others throwing in comments now and then.

The rainbow groundcover was almost the least of the changes to the place.  Where it had previously been surrounded by barbed wire, there was now a tall twisted hedge of deep purple branches that flickered red in the shadows. 

“It’s a completely new compound species,” explained swift-Kalat, “created by the Sprookjes to be safe to us.  It’s been dubbed ‘bleeding-giant’ by the team, though I believe the Sprookjes call it something closer to ‘Strange-sprookje citadel’...unless that’s a reference to the compound as a whole, which is also possible.”

“It makes quite a show in the storms,” mentioned _layli-layli calulan._

“Damn right it does,” said Buntec.  “Especially now that we don’t have to worry about all the mud that’s going to get on our boots later.”

Most of the cabins also had some level of landscaping done around them now, though _layli-layli calulan_ ’s was still one of the most ornate. 

“I think the whole compound is more or less considered FineGarden’s artistic domain, as far as the Sprookjes are concerned,” said Alfvaen.

“What’s that?” asked Tocohl, pointing to what looked like a kind of writing or abstract picture design on the wall of one of the cabins.

“The beginnings of a shared writing system,” said Bayd.  “The Sprookjes don’t have writing—near as we can tell, they can encode abstract thoughts biologically, which we haven’t even _begun_ to try to crack yet.  And the concept of encoding meaning in symbols that represent _sound_ is equally foreign for them.”

“Ideograms, then?” guessed Tocohl.

“Nothing very complex yet, but yes,” said Bayd.

“What does that say?” asked Tocohl.

“Roughly, ‘cooperation’.  Maybe ‘harmony’, but without the musical implications.”

“Do the Sprookjes even _have_ music?” Tocohl wondered out loud.

“Not from what we can tell,” said swift-Kalat, “or at least nothing we would call music.  Hearing really isn’t a primary sense for them.  A few of them have been interested, though.  The ethnology notes I’ve managed to make are truly fascinating, and have the potential to completely change the way the field is addressed.”

Tocohl opened her mouth to make some answer to that, but was cut off by a sudden loud clap of thunder.

“That would explain why the Sprookjes aren’t here,” said Bayd conversationally.

Swift-Kalat shook his head in some consternation, making his long braid flick back and forth.  “This planet may yet change the field of meteorology as well.  We still don’t understand how the Sprookjes can predict the local weather.”

“In any case, let’s get our butts back to the common room before they get wet,” said Buntec cheerfully.  “And then we can have a proper gossip tell you all the details and maybe teach you a few of the naughtier words of Sprookje we’ve managed to pick up.”

Tocohl took a deep breath of the constantly ionized air, and then let it out through a grin with teeth.  “After you.”

 


End file.
